NOAA AND PARTNERS STUDY SEQUOIAS OF THE SEA

March 12, 2003 — Author Jules Verne wrote about an underwater forest “composed of large treelike plants” with branches of a “shape I had never seen before” in his 1869 book “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” What Verne wrote as fiction has become fact as more and more is being learned about deep-sea corals. (Click on NOAA images for larger view of deep sea coral reef in a remote area west of the Dry Tortugas Islands in the Florida Keys. Please credit “NOAA.”)

NOAA, through its Fisheries, Ocean, and Research offices, conducts research to learn more about these little-known deep-sea corals and what role they play, especially as climate change indicators or potential sources for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

For at least two centuries, people who fish have reported lines becoming entangled in deep-sea “trees.” The “trees” are thickets of corals that provide essential habitat for fish and other marine life. Unlike the shallow tropical water corals that are most familiar, deep-sea corals are found in dark frigid water often beyond the continental shelf break.

These sequoias of the sea can be thousands of years old and have been found at depths ranging from 150 feet to 3,000 feet.

Like terrestrial trees, deep-sea corals add yearly rings. While they are slow-growing, some of specimens have been estimated to be more than 1,800 years old. One area off of Norway is estimated to be about 8,500 years old. Pieces of deep-sea corals are often brought up by trawls that scrape the ocean bottom.

Deep-sea corals come in two types—hard or stony corals—which are similar to those found on tropical coral reefs and soft corals, which can be small and delicate or very large and tree-like. The largest of these, Paragorgia arborea, can grow more than nine feet high.

NOAA has conducted a variety of activities focusing on deep-sea corals.

NOAA Fisheries conducts research on deep-sea corals in collaboration with NOAA Research and NOAA Fisheries regional science centers in Alaska, the northeast, southeast and southwest U.S.

NOAA Research has two offices that promote the study of deep-sea corals, the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and the NOAA Undersea Research Program. OE focuses on mapping resources, new species and new ecosystems; observing ocean dynamics at new scales, developing new technologies, such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and manned submersible sensors; and conducting public education and outreach. NURP enables scientists to research environmental issues of regional, national and global importance by providing advanced underwater technologies and methods, including mixed gas diving, manned submersibles, ROVs, and AUVs for scientists to explore, sample and make observations underwater.

The NOAA Ocean Service through the National Marine Sanctuary Program and the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science also research deep-sea corals and hard bottom communities.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation’s coastal and marine resources. NOAA is part of the U. S. Department of Commerce.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration

NOAA Undersea Research Program

NOAA Fisheries

NOAA Ocean Service

NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Program

NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

Media Contact:
Jana Goldman, NOAA Research, (301) 713-2483 ext. 181